Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Here is the long awaited update of the Soul Reapers codex. It will go up on TCP next week.

There have been lots of little tweaks throughout the entire document. Some units made force org slot moves, Possessed got their second wound back (with the points upped again), the Land Raider got it's infernal device back, Warlord Krüg got a shiny new special rule, minor tweaks to the psychic powers as well and many other little things throughout.

I also added a couple of new units:

First is the Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought in its Imperial Marine format, which fits the Reapers more than the Chaos variant.

The Terror Hawk Gunship is the second, that is right I did it, I wanted and now have a flying transport. It's my codex and I will not apologize for it. It is loosely based on the Storm Hawk from the Tempus Fugitives Age of the Emperor supplement.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Hey guys I just wanted to let the larger community know that
I do a limited amount of commission painting. I have mostly been doing them for
my friends, which has been great fun. I am out of work right now and could use
some extra cash to supplement my hobby.

Disclaimer: Some of you may think that my prices are a bit
high; which may be true in some cases, but I do quality
work and am not willing to work for much less than minimum wage. I have spent a
lot of time working out these prices over the past few years. By the time I am
done with cleaning, building and painting an entire army I usually make between
7-8 dollars an hour.

I offer a wide range of miniature related services. From
painting to modeling, I can be your one stop location for assembling and
painting your miniature armies. The prices for my services are listed below,
these prices reflect cleaning and building your models as well as our standard quality
paint job; better than your average tabletop quality but not quite competition
quality. I can do higher quality paintjobs with pricing being discussed on a
case by case basis.

Painting
Price list

Character Models
are start off at $80 depending on the model. (These models are painted to a
much higher standard than the “grunt” models and are meant to be centerpieces
to your army.)

Fully detailed and painted
vehicle interior $25.00 (basic grey/tan with a wash interiors are included in the
base costs listed above)

Model Conversion prices are determined on a case by case basis.

Custom printed decals (design provided by client) $20.00

Simple Magnetization $ 10.00 (one mounting point on the models
body)

Complex Magnetization (multiple mounting points on the same
model) $18.00

Notes:
Prices are subject to change, I will do my best to keep this post updated.

* I have a high standard for my commission work when it
comes to preparing and building vehicles. To gain the pre-assembled rate the
models must have all “burrs” from removing the model from the sprues and any
mold lines that may be on the model must be removed. If they are not adequately
removed I will take pictures of the non cleaned up models and charge $10.00 to
clean up the offending items.

Shipping

I use UPS ground with
tracking to ship, since the US Post office has decided to be unworthy losing a
commission that had to be redone. So far I have found UPS
ground to be pretty reasonable with shipping running between 8-25 dollars for
the various commissions I have sent in the past.

I wrap models in bubble wrap and fill the rest of the space
with packing peanuts. I have not had any issue with breakage so far.

Setting up a
commission

Getting in touch with me is simple just go to my blogger
profile and email me from there. Then we can start discussing your project.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The latest set of Heavy Gear rules is called "locked and loaded" and are available from Dream Pod 9, for those unfamiliar with the game and setting, Heavy Gear is a 1/144 scale Sci-Fi
game with a focus on "Heavy Gears" they are roughly 15 foot tall armored
suits that bridge the gap between conventional infantry and armored
vehicles. Heavy Gears make up more than half of each army list, the other
half is filled with Tanks/AFV's, Infantry, Artillery and Aircraft.

The guys over at Frontline Gaming have recently started playing Heavy Gear and I want some of that action!

Here are some of my painted Northern Alliance miniatures. (disclaimer: these are old sculpts from the late 90's, the new sculpts blow these outta the water!)

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Hey guys,
Brian is offering up some sweet S.O. Killzone tokens and decks of Mission and Fate cards over at A Gentleman's Ones. While not required for play, they are a Glorious way of enhancing your S.O. KZ experience! So head on over and pick your combo pack.

Monday, March 12, 2012

I am in the process of updating my Flames of War armies now that 3rd edition has been released. Nothing major in the way of changes, I am really just using it as an excuse to fish up some stuff that has been sitting here forever gathering dust.

First up I am working to finish up my Mid war Afrika Corps army:

Dusty Panzer III

The Dreaded 88

Panzergrenadiers

Yup, I went a little crazy and painted the cuff titles!

Armored Reece

Next I will be working on stuff for my LAH Panzer/Panzergrenadier/Reconnaissance force that straddles the Mid and Late war gaming eras. All the vehicle camo and most of the weathering on these have been done with an airbrush, man do I love that thing!

Company HQ

Markers

Assault gun halftracks

Anti-aircraft halftrack

StuG III Assault gun

So you can expect many more FOW WWII goodness in the weeks and months to come!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Not to be confused with Special Operations Killzone; Killzone Evolution is a completely different animal of a skirmish game. It will diverge even more from the basic 40k rules than S.O. KZ did; it will add much more modern mechanics that will still utilize many of the basic stats/rules of 40k.

I am currently testing out a non-phased, alternating
activation turn system. Each model will have a set number of actions that they
can perform when “activated.” The initial results have really been fantastic,
creating a really cinematic feel to the games while adding real tactics to the
game play.

The reintroduction of “to hit” modifiers has been well liked
all around from initial playtests.

Instead of dumping cover saves completely we added a to hit
modifier to shooting and added a cover save mechanic where you get +1 to your
armor save roll against weapons that have an AP that ignores your armor save;
with the maximum cover save of 4+, so the best cover save a power armored model
gets is 4+. This was done for game balance, it keeps those cheap units
benefiting from the smart use of cover and keeps them from being better than
they should be for their points (as the current cover save rules do, IMHO), without making power armored troops god like.
(who knows if this will survive, but we are giving it a go!)

We have also added in a reaction mechanic to being
assaulted/charged where your models may shoot or flee for the attackers if they
pass an initiative test.

We are also testing out a few ways to make moral more
important to the game.

We would like to add a suppression system to make the game
more dynamic.

There will also be two ways to build and play forces, the
first is the traditional S.O. Killzone way; with individual model units for
lists of 250 points or less. The second will be squad based unit combat with
forces over 250 points to a maximum of 850 (or 1000, I have not nailed this
down yet) points. In the squad based games there will be limited access to HQ’s,
vehicles and tanks.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

I have been asked many times
to put out a list in PDF form for the house rules that we use here in the Adventures in Wargaming
Man-cave. Here is a short list of the main rules we use in our every day games.
This is a living document and I will add to them over time as I transfer the
hand written rules into this document.

We take a very “Old School”
approach to our gaming; none of us care about the actual win or loss scenario
as much as we care about having a great time with our bros creating great stories
and epic memories.

Most of these rules have been posted to the blog over the years. Many have been tweaked since their initial postings. Now you can get them all in their current incarnations in a simple little PDF for ease of use.

I know that house rules are
not everyone’s cup o’ tea and that is fine by me to each his own I say. If you
have an open mind and decide to try these; I will assure you that if you try
these that they will add loads of new tactics and fun to your games of 40k.

When I speak of the “wow factor” I am talking about those
epic moments in a game that get everyone involved cheering and laughing! Successful
narrative games emphasize the fun aspect of the game.

Here are two examples from the event I just ran last
weekend: first up is the Daemon Prince that just would not die! That monster
made more saves than were statistically possible and everyone involved was
whooping and hollering as he survived a torrent of fire that should have
pancaked him!

Next we have the apocalyptically exploded Baneblade that
took out buildings, terrain and scads of other models with it! The cheering on
both sides of the table was so loud that it turned heads in the gaming hall!

There are ways of creating these moments artificially
through special rules, random events and even through game master involvement.

Creating house rules to help the game feel more like the
stories in the novels can be a great way to make those wow moments happen. Let’s
look at one of the rules I made for the BAO event.

“Dangerous Terrain checks usually remove a model if they
roll a 1 on the D6 test. In this event if the model fails the dangerous terrain
test it is only removed if the model fails its saving throw (Armor or
Invulnerable). Feel No Pain may not be used to save a model from a failed save
in this case.”

Now this was a relatively simple change that allowed jump
troops to cinematically jump in and clear troops from dense terrain like woods
with less chance to trip over a rock and die. It also allowed deepstriking
troops to be really gutsy with their deployment; just like they would do in one
of the Black Library novels.

I also for this event took a page outta my S.O. Killzone
design philosophy by including Fate and Strategy cards to each player. These
were very well received and added a new twist to the game.

The Fate cards allowed players to do things like once per
game re-roll all failed saving throws, gain furious charge for that assault
that had to be won or double their firepower for one shooting phase.

The Strategy cards allowed for all sorts of nifty in game
effects like giving players Orbital strikes, veteran infantry or tank crews and
strategic redeployment of one unit.

Through game master involvement I was able to add tension to
the game by having randomly deployed warp portals that would transport units
that moved through them to a “pocket dimension” so they could attempt to claim
an alien artifact.

These are just some ideas I have used to good effect, but
there are countless more things that can be done to add that “wow factor.”

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Yesterday I ran the event, we had 10 players and it was a
fantastic, no scratch that a GLORIOUS success!

The planet Delis fell into ruination as the forces of
Disorder set everything ablaze in their hunt for the artifact.

One of my favorite epic moments in a game filled with epic moments!

Titus the Butcher staring down a Baneblade; I though he was a goner! Boy howdy was I wrong, Josh the Daemon player rolled the most epic batch of Saves I have ever seen. Titus basically shrugged off 6 Lascannons and 15 heavy bolter shots, although he did lose 2 wounds.